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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The Long Life Of The Ford Escort

By Andy Zain

The long life of the Ford Escort -- the model sold in the United States and Canada, for the most part -- took on several different shapes, though every one aimed to capture a large segment of the compact car market. Up until 1981, Ford had mostly failed at doing so though its new attempt with what it dubbed a "world car" would seek to attract buyers in North America.

As a model that ran up through the 2003 model year, the compact Escort had a very nice life. The new Focus picked up the load after the little compact was put out to pasture though thousands of them still run on the roads to this day. Originally based of model off the same name sold in Europe, it was redesigned extensively before being put forward for sale to Americans.

The Ford Escort was also the company's first front-wheel-drive car, and it replaced Ford's subcompact Pinto, which had been in production since 1971 and had been through several controversies which impacted sales of that model. In the 1980s, the Escort was one of Ford's most successful models. In fact, it was so well-liked that it was the single best selling car in the United States by its second year and for most of the 1980s.

There were three different generations of Ford Escort sold in the North American market, with each one being an improvement over the other. Different body styles and options packages combined with a wide variety of four-cylinder engines and various transmissions over the years. There was even a small 52 horsepower diesel at one end and a turbocharged dynamo that could spool up to produce 120 horsepower at the other.

Over the course of the third and last generation, which lasted from 1997 through the end of 2002, engineers at Ford had managed to demonstrate a real facility with the design and manufacture of compact vehicles, managing to squeeze increasingly good performance and reliability from a variety of four-cylinder engines while also giving customers nice styling, especially for the relative low prices the Escort sold at.

Over the two-plus decades of the car's life, the Escort appeared in a variety of body styles. There was a hatchback sporting what Ford called "three doors, " and a station wagon model along with a couple of different performance sport coupes that first appeared on the scene back in 1998. The designers also kept up the car's appearance, freshening and redesigning it over the years.

Over its life, the Ford Escort played a vital part in keeping the car's Dearborn-based automaker alive and well. Keeping it in showrooms allowed the company to learn how to manufacture compact vehicles while simultaneously selling a great many of them to many a customer. This had the happy effect of keeping the Blue Oval on the minds of many consumers and for that reason alone, the Escort must be considered a success. - 21396

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